


Sailing to Bimini

by Wordplaysam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordplaysam/pseuds/Wordplaysam
Summary: In the final days before their world will end, five scientists make preparations for life after death. And, as it turns out, death has some surprises.





	Sailing to Bimini

**Author's Note:**

> If you accept that Cavil inserted the Tighs in the Twelve Colonies in their mid-twenties and Galen at eighteen (which, given the flashbacks, is clearly younger than they were when Earth 1.0 Fell) then there’s no reason why you *have* to assume that the Earth 1.0 versions were the same relative ages as the Twelve Colonies versions.

“Professor Anders?”

Sam looked from his stack of papers to see Tory Foster in the open doorway. “I’m sorry, my dear, did you knock?”

“It’s fine,” she said, which of course meant she had and he hadn’t heard. Tory was too blunt to ever lie convincingly just to spare feelings.

“Come on, come in,” he said, and she slid into the armchair across his desk. “How are you and young Mr. Tyrol faring?”

She blushed a little at that. “Great,” she said. Not so unobservant as they thought, he noted with pleasure. “At the lab, I mean. Galen’s really doing some excellent work. But we haven’t cracked the spatial problem of, you know, the bioelectric current, and I thought I’d let you take a look at our proof.”

“Of course,” he said, pulling his glasses off the top of the pile. “Let me see.” She handed him the paper and her pen.

Hours later, reams of equations clutched to her chest, Tory left the office, leaving Sam alone.

Well, “alone.” Which wasn’t really so alone as everyone believed.

“I’m still not entirely convinced I want to participate in this Resurrection business,” he grumbled.

“You don’t mean that, Sammy,” she said from her perch on the windowsill. “Where’s that adventurous spirit I love?”

Oh, she was young today. Perky. Twenty-three, glossy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, workingman’s shirt rolled up to her elbows and primer on her arms, like when they were carefree newlyweds, renovating that terrible apartment a block from campus.

His angel.

“ _Loved_ ,” he corrected. “And I think eighty-seven years is enough time for adventures, thank you very much.” 

Today was probably in response to Tory, for his wife didn’t usually appear to him in a body so young. In fact, he preferred her older (more mature, she’d say). He could barely keep up with her when he’d been the star forward of Thrace University’s basketball team, Big Man On Campus, veritable bright mind of his generation, and full of all the energy in the world. A doddering Theoretical Physics professor who wasn’t even certain he remembered to brush his teeth this morning didn’t stand a chance.

She bounded to her feet and straddled him, leaning in close. “You’ve been offered a chance to live through the end of the world,” she said, her lips brushing his cheek.

“I've already lived through the end of my world, darling,” he replied.

Seventy-two. That’s the age he liked best. White hair, not blonde, but still bright-eyed, still healthy, still so beautiful she took his breath away, his co-conspirator against a world that increasingly mystified them. The year before her cancer, before she died, left _him_ alone, a situation so terrible that he'd never even considered it as a possibility.

She sat beside him and took his hand. “Your Destiny is bigger than dying forever in the rubble.”

“My Destiny,” he repeated. That’s what she said she first came to him—her ghost, that is—two years ago, with the message that some serious shit was about to go down and he had a Destiny and he needed to get his ass out of retirement and call up Ellen Tigh. Her words, not his.

“There’s not much time left, now. I’d better leave you to your work, Professor,” she said, and it still did something to him, when she purred _Professor_.

She left. She left him aching.

***

Later:

She knelt at his side with bloodshot, baggy eyes, forty-seven, the age she’d been when their son drowned (Once, she came to him pregnant, but it was too hard, remembering how elated they’d been, all the hopes and dreams they’d had for Leoben, and with tears in his eyes he asked her to never come to him like that again. Dead or alive, she rarely let him win an argument, but she listened that time).

She helped him find the strength to move on. Then and now.

“See you on the other side,” she promised.

***

Despite the fact that they all died at different times (they’d discover later, when they compared notes—Galen in the first flash, Saul and Ellen under the rubble as he tried to rescue her, Tory in a riot, and Sam, ironically the last, slowly succumbing to radiation sickness over days until he finally held a pillow to his face and kept it there), they sputtered to life in the tubs at once, splashing in the goo.

But once Sam adjusted to the shock of being alive, of air in his lungs, he remembered where he was and what they had set in place. It had worked. Resurrection had worked. 

He grabbed the edge of his Resurrection Tub and pulled himself up, absently noting that it was easier to maneuver in a Resurrection Tub than a bathtub, for whatever reason. He swung his feet over the edge and stood. The others had gathered themselves, as well. Galen and Tory were unchanged, but something about Saul and Ellen was…different. Ellen reminded him, somehow, of the girl she’d been twenty years ago, when she’d shown up in his office asking if he’d be her doctoral supervisor.

She was looking at him with her mouth wide open. They all were, except for Galen, who was plain quizzical.

“Um…who are you?” Galen asked.

“Who do you think?” he harrumphed. “Last I checked there were only five of us.”

“Professor Anders?!” Saul asked.

“Who else?”

“Lords of Kobol,” Ellen said.

“Hot damn.” From Tory.

And then Sam looked down. 

Well, that explained Ellen and Saul. _And_ , while he was at it, why it was so easy to get out of the Tub: shoulders unbowed. Strong, steady fingers. Washboard abs like he still hit the gym seven days a week.

Lords help him, he laughed. 

It was the end of the world, but he was lightheaded with giddiness. He touched his toes. He stretched to full extension, arms above his head, in awe of a suppleness he hadn’t felt in decades. Over fifty years. Sixty, easily. He dropped his arms. Tory and Ellen were staring. Hells, Galen and Saul were staring.

With a smirk, he grabbed a towel off the edge of the tub and wrapped it around his waist. “Trust me, my dears, none of you are enjoying this as much as I am.” Well, except for one other, standing beyond the circle of the Tubs. “Your doing?” he asked.

“I...I programmed all our duplicate bodies to be the same age,” Tory stammered, flushed. “I didn’t…didn’t even think about....”

He raised an eyebrow, and his angel's lips curled in a slow grin like a lioness spotting prey. Oh, tonight was going to be fun. Let them think he was pleasuring himself. Let them think he was pleasuring himself hard, and loud, and for _hours_. 

His Destiny could start tomorrow.


End file.
